Will "Orange Is the New Black" Finally Acknowledge Bisexuality?

Like everyone in the Netflix-having world, I've been counting down until the premiere and subsequent all-weekend binge-watching of Orange Is the New Black season two. I have all the same questions as the rest of the universe: Will Taystee and Poussey get way more screen time? Will Sophia find a nice lesbian who will love her the way Crystal never could? Will Pornstache die, hopefully in some sort of freak accident involving fire ants and an earthquake? What will happen to Larry? Just kidding, no one has ever wondered anything about Larry except when he'll shut up. But my biggest and most pressing question is: Will season two finally include someone — anyone — saying the word "bisexual" out loud?

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Orange Is the New Black's first season was fascinating and provocative for a host of reasons — its diverse cast (when was the last time you saw such a wide variety of ages, ethnicities, body types, and gender presentations on television?); its portrayal of the U.S. prison system; its groundbreaking choice to cast transgender actress Laverne Cox as transgender character Sophia Burset; and, of course, its overall array of interesting and complicated female characters, quite a few of whom are queer. Many of Orange's most engaged and vociferous fans are queer women, and indeed, I only became interested in watching it after several early adopters persuaded me with "There are lesbians!" There certainly are, and they are wonderful. But there are also queer characters who aren't lesbians, and in such an apparently LGBT-friendly show, it's very weird that literally zero people ever use the B-word.

It would be one thing if the apparently bisexual characters were secondary, so tangential to the plot that their orientation wasn't really relevant. But it's the protagonist, Piper, who is most clearly bi. Her romantic subplot in season one dealt with her attempt to decide which relationship to pursue — boring but stable with Larry the Worst, or thrilling but dangerous with Alex the Almost As Bad. (Actually, it might be most accurate to describe Piper's orientation as "awfulsexual.") To the show's credit, it never relies on the biphobic trope of a character being sexually "confused." Piper never displays any sort of identity crisis or self-doubt around the fact that she's attracted to both men and women. She's honest about it and doesn't seem to feel any pressure to choose a gender — she just has to choose a person.

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But still, Piper never describes herself as bisexual. The word does not make a single appearance in all of season one. Instead, she says, "I like hot boys. I like hot girls. I'm shallow." Besides the fact that Piper never uses the word herself, her bisexuality is frequently erased in more overt ways by other characters on the show. She's referred to as a "former lesbian," a "straight girl," a "dyke." There's an oft-reblogged scene in which Larry, freaking out about Piper's orientation, asks her brother Cal, "What is she, exactly?" And Cal replies, "I'm gonna go ahead and guess that one of the issues here is your need to say that a person is exactly anything." Which is a really nice way of defending sexual fluidity and uncertainty, both of which are valid, but it's a weird dodge around the fact that Piper is exactly something. She's exactly bisexual. There's a word in the English language that specifically means "someone who is attracted to members of more than one gender." Obviously Larry and Piper's problems go beyond this one particular issue, but it's very strange to me that Cal never says, "Dude, I think she's just bi." It's as though this show (and really, almost all fiction) exists in a parallel universe where everything is the same except that the word "bisexual" was never invented.

Just like in real life, bi erasure on Orange Is the New Black comes from the queer characters as much as from the straight ones. Alex, Piper's ex-girlfriend, refers to Piper as a "straight girl" and asks about when she "went back to boys," as though Piper's relationship with Alex was merely a phase in a lifetime of heterosexuality. This particular biphobic trope is something bi people get a lot from the lesbian/gay community, as though having opposite-sex desires negates or trumps a history of same-sex ones.

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Of course, it's not unusual for a bisexual person to have difficulty articulating the truth of her orientation, as Piper seems to, nor is it strange that a bi woman would encounter biphobia and bi erasure from both male and female partners. Indeed, it would be awfully unrealistic to tell a story about a bi character without portraying at least an occasional run-in with biphobia. But the bi erasure in Orange Is the New Black doesn't seem to come from individual characters so much as it emerges from the fabric of the show itself, particularly since the characters on the show who erase or disrespect Piper's orientation are never portrayed as wrong or flawed for doing so.

Contrast this, for example, with the portrayal of Laverne Cox's Sophia, a trans woman. It would be absurd to tell a story about a trans woman that features no discrimination, and Orange doesn't try. But the show does offer Sophia ample opportunity to respond to transphobic policies and comments, to speak out against the way the system and people within it attempt to dehumanize her, to tell her own story in her own words. Piper, on the other hand, almost never gets to correct anyone for projecting binary assumptions onto her. It's possible that the writers meant this to be interpreted as the character struggling to come to terms with her sexuality, but it comes across as though it's never occurred to anyone in charge of the show to describe Piper as bi — especially when bi-erasing comments are delivered by fan-favorite characters like Natasha Lyonne's Nicky, who commiserates with Alex by calling Piper a "straight girl."

Why is this such a big deal? Because representation matters. Seeing queer characters portrayed in a positive and empowering light offers positivity and empowerment to queer people in the real world. So many LGBT people have coming-out stories that involve seeing someone like us on television or in a movie or in a book, and realizing that this thing we always thought was a horrible, shameful aberration is actually OK — that there's a whole community out there for us. But these portrayals are still few and far between, and for bisexuals they're even more difficult to find. A character like Piper offers a great opportunity to explore bisexuality with nuance and depth, to go beyond the tired "is she straight or is she gay?" clichés. It would be amazing to see a proudly bisexual protagonist on such a popular show, but so far Orange Is the New Black hasn't delivered. I hope to see them step it up in the upcoming season. This show hasn't shied away from depicting racism, classism, drug use, or fisting in a chapel; there's no reason bisexuality should be treated as taboo.